Anotheran

Hi Mike, sorry it's taken so long to reply, I've not had a lot of chance for any railway related activity for quite a while. I do have a copy of that book and you're correct about it being full of useful and interesting information on both the lines and the stock. It's very much my key resource for my roster over the years. I look forward to looking at a thread on your Gwili layout. Neil

I have it on good authority that the Undying Lands are just west of Barmouth and south of Pwllheli and that if the conditions are right you can still see the forests and hear the singing of the inhabitants... So Traeth Mawr isn't too much of a trek... But of course by then he'd have been Barf wen, so it can't be him, can it? I think this flu is getting to my brain!

The idea of a compartment of wives and daughters separate from that of the farmer's amuses me somewhat, but I'm sure it would have been the case. And the scope for beards is significant from great long Dickensian ones to the wispy ones of would be farmers' sons. If the Traeth Mawr Thursday market was big enough to warrant a whole group of farmers and their families booking a saloon couldn't it also have justified a ThO service, maybe even as a mixed train, in addition to the standard weekday timetable to get other people there early enough as well? Or does that take TM too far towards the realm of fiction?

I like the recent work you've been doing a lot Chris. I have to admit that I don't remember suggesting the beard, though it is the sort of silly suggestion I make! I'm not about to flick back through 150 pages to find it though. Having said that I think you've nailed it, hopefully not literally for the farmer's sake. Also for his sake you need to find out his real name as I can hear the small boys shouting out "Barf llwyd" as he's driving his sheep past them. A bit rude, but boys will be... well, rude! As for loco colour I'm all ears, or rather eyes. Not that I'm any closer to having a layout for my 1896 era than I was a year ago, but I can still watch others and dream on! It's always good to see the progress and hear the comments of the inhabitants on Traeth Mawr. Especially at the moment as I'm laid up in bed with a bad dose of 'flu awaiting the result of a C19 test! Kind regards, Neil

Thank you very much for the interest Pete. Hmmm, progress? Well I've bought more kits... and started a few in spare moments but they have been few and far between. The garage progressed in becoming a little clearer... Then came lock down. So a lot more time yes? Indeed, time to build 5 raised beds in the new vegetable garden behind the garage, then to plant them, then to tend them, then to harvest them... And have I found time to do the garage? I'm sure you can guess the answer. Now I need the autumn so that everything stops growing and maybe I can get some time again! If I make some progress then I'll report it... So I really hope that you won't be asking the same question again in 12 months!

It's only when you put it like that that I realised how forward thinking IKEA has been all this time.

That's very much my point. Mark Drakeford and Nicola Sturgeon had been very explicit that they were talking only about Wales and Scotland respectively and were only broadcast in the relevant countries (and also that the message wasn't changing much at all). Boris should have made it clear that he was talking about England only or only been broadcast in England. The plan you've linked to is only marginally better. Trumpeting on the front page that it's the plan of the UK government, then paying the odd nod to devolution every few pages, but outlining a plan that is almost all just England as most of it deals with things that the "UK" government has no say over in Scotland, Wales and NI and those devolved governments have not agreed to. But I'll get off my hobby horse now as, as far as I am aware, there is currently no devolution in Edwardian Norfolk leaving the Mad Man of Upper East Side NYC to be the right person to be speaking for Castle Aching.

That should read 56M people. Which was just one of the problems of his "UK" speech. Almost everything he said applied to England only. In the previous couple of days Scotland, Wales and NI had all continued the original "four nations" lockstep approach. Now it's three nations as England has decided to change the approach. This was done while looking like he was talking to the UK as a whole. So we now have the possibility of someone in Herefordshire deciding that they can drive a short distance to exercise and being fined just over the border in Wales where you must not drive to exercise. When he's speaking for England only he should say that because the BBC seems incapable of only showing it in the correct countries or putting up a big banner along the bottom saying it's only England people. I suppose it's only been two decades, so why should a prime minister know about devolution...

Strange goings on in RMWeb world... my Content I Follow feed now has this for some reason... I have a hard enough time keeping up with one Castle Aching! Best thread on the web though Kind regards, Neil

I think it's a very clever bit of bespoke kit bashing, though it may make it hard to fit the roof.

You'll be spotted fairly easily as you've just pointed out that there isn't any!

Jonathan, Your 2 plank and 3 plank models make me want to buy more kits to add to my unfinished (indeed mostly unstarted) pile of kits! The trouble is I want to resist but then start worrying about the longevity of these small suppliers. Your brake van is fantastic. As you know, I've drawn up plans for a scratch built early GWR outside frame brake. But it's got no further than that. Your build is very inspiring and may just be the kick I need. I hope you can salvage the finish. I'm with Chris in suggesting a varnish respray before anything more drastic. However the finish ends up though, I really like the build. Kind regards, Neil

Opened it up full size on my large monitor to admire the detail and through focusing in suddenly spotted the man sat in the tree. It took a moment or two to readjust my thought process to take in the locomotive again and for it to filter through that it was the driver, who I'd seen inside that loco so many times before and categorically not sat in the tree! Brilliant picture. I too think the ladder is exquisite, to use LS' term. But one if the details that really got me was the sack that's been left draped over the fence by the chap who's presumably popped into the hut for a cup of tea. Whether that's the story or not, the fact that it's there screams out that there is a story being told! Kind regards, Neil

Oh dear. Just listened to it and I struggled to believe a word you said.

If only... Edit to say I know it's the Castle Bromwich works but if it's full of planes you could maybe call it a hanger...

I have it... The coach does indeed have the moveable back to the seats and it is set so that passengers look forwards. The monochrome ones that I noted are monochrome because they are simply the ghosts of those who were overcome by the fumes through facing forwards on the outward journey.

I believe that your sentence here refers to the this drawing. If so I don't think that the passengers are all facing the same way in the 6 compartment coaches. In each of the two there are individuals, shown monochrome, who are depicted facing backwards, in all compartments except the front ones. There doesn't seem to be much legroom for it, but I think that it does indicate benches on both sides of the compartments.

That really does look impressive. Rather disappointed that I didn't order a set now, though I'm sure there will be another run fairly quickly! Now the big question... are you going to weather it?

Really good to see this Chris as I purchased the same print in order to do 645 class (number 645 itself) which was a regular at Newcastle Emlyn between the opening of the station in 1896 and 1906. in addition to changing the plate count on the boiler I'm planning to cut down the bunker as it's a bit long. But that last bit may be shelved as a step too far for my skills as it will probably require surgery to the donor chassis as well. I'm very eager to see how your build goes. What running number are you planning to use? Kind regards, Neil

By way of experiment, in a very unscientific way, I looked at the header picture of the completed model, with its red plates, and converted to greyscale, no other processing at all. To me the plates now look to have a darker tone! In this case I think it's just an optical illusion caused by the presence of the lighter border to the plates and the white GWR lettering. Proves nothing other than colour is both subjective, and very difficult to nail down in monochrome!

This is where we would really benefit from a reference as that statement seems pretty categorical. Indeed plate 349 does have significantly different tone. I think that 25 and 26 are less convincing. While 25 clearly has differences they look possibly the wrong way round for me. I'd expect red on metal to weather slower than red on wood (it can only get moisture from one direction and the surface itself wears less). So I'd expect the heavier red of the metal to be darker in the way that it is in plate 25. To me plate 26 shows very similar tones. If you look at the tone of the GWR plate (away from the edges where there are shadows and potentially grime, but close to the lettering) then I think it's very close to the tones of the planks just above it. Obviously I don't know. But I'm not convinced that the pictures give enough evidence to be sure. Which is why a reference for the sentence would have been perfect... especially if it was along the lines of "Swindon instruction memo to workshops dated 1894" So in short I totally agree with your last statement... Hmmm.

At this point you had rather lost the inglenook shunting plank and were almost here... Which obviously I like, but it's not a shunting plank Kind regards, Neil

There seems to be some confusion between English and British here. Coel Hen (Old King Cole), my 44 x great grandfather (through a number of distaff lines, I'm not claiming any rights to a throne here!) was indeed British, that is Brythonic Celt. Welsh was the term given to the Brythons by the incoming English with the meaning of foreigner. But Coel wasn't the last British monarch, many of his descendants were British monarchs, right down to Hywel Dda, Llewellyn the Great and later. Having Welsh in the list of those imposed on the British is also a little strange (as they are the same thing). Having English in the list is more accurate as they were imposed on the British. It was not long after the time of Coel Hen that the North Folk (a bunch of Angles) came to be recognised as a separate community from the South Folk, and both very distinct from the Saxons who'd settled further South and West. But it was a long time later that they founded the settlement of Castle Aching necessitating the building of a railway. Not sure that makes this post on-topic as it's often hard to know what on-topic actually is. But it's always an illuminating read!

A brilliant blog as usual Mikkel, That Smethwick photograph intrigued me too. The more I look at it the more I think that the building you see in the modern photo is indeed the upper floor of the old stable block with the roof replaced with a flat one and the left hand end altered somewhat. The Google Streetview only shows the back that has been clad in steel (well it would be for a European Metal Recycling yard wouldn't it!). The birds eye view on Bing provides a slightly better angle showing where the ramp goes down to the lower level where it previously went up to the top floor, but still isn't definitive. It also shows why you can still see the sidings in the scrapyard as a big ugly EWS loco has just pushed 30 empty wagons in to be loaded with scrap. I'm sufficiently curious that next time I'm in the area I'll have to pay EMR Smethwick a visit to ask if I can take a look at their office building! If I can, and it looks like it is the original stable, then I'll take a few snaps. Maybe a self published work on lulu.com. For small runs it looks a reasonable way to go without having the upfront costs of a traditional publisher. I've set up a couple of projects on there in the past though never quite got to the publishing point! An individual book may cost slightly more to the buyer (and definitely will pay less to the author), but it gets it out there... and I'd buy one! Kind regards, Neil

Sorry that my first post in ages is completely off topic... But it's my thread... Just had my first experience of Avanti West Coast on the 20:30 from Euston arriving Stafford at 21:59. Arrived perfectly on time. But as we came towards Stafford I felt that it didn't seem normal. Sure enough we pulled up at platform 1, which for those of you not familiar with Stafford is the Up platform. I hesitate to say it, but got there fast on the wrong side of the road... How very Italian! However, it did mean that I could get out of the train straight out the exit and not have to use the bridge... So long may it continue.